


sentinels.

by foundCarcosa



Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age II
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-28
Updated: 2013-02-28
Packaged: 2017-12-03 21:55:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/703040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foundCarcosa/pseuds/foundCarcosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seanán Hawke has his first serious talk with Aveline, and realises they're more alike than he'd let himself think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sentinels.

Sometimes Varric stops by, but that's usually to ask a favour from a member of the guard. Sometimes Bethany checks in, but they don't really have much to talk about. Anders hasn't taken much interest in anyone's lives yet, and Fenris has his own troubles.

Suffice it to say that Aveline is unused to visitors.

"Siobhan? What are you doing here?" is her knee-jerk reaction, heavy on the 'you', a thinly-veiled 'Are you lost?' Seanán frowns, taken aback.

"Is this a bad time...?"

"Oh, no, not at all." She shares her section of the barracks with two other women, but they're both out on duty. Aveline had gotten the night off, much to her dismay, but her sword had needed tending-to anyway. She nods to the chair next to the nightstand. "Have a seat. Is something wrong?"

Seanán perches on the edge of the chair, ill at ease in the unfamiliar setting. "No. Just... wanted to see how you were doing."

Aveline regards him sceptically, barking a short laugh. "I'm fine, Siobhan."  
Seanán has dealt with being called by the name his mother gave him all his life, but he sighs anyway, wishing.

"So, uh. What are you doing?" he asks after a moment of uncomfortable silence, watching her hands settle on the blade in her lap. Her hands, ruddy and calloused, suited for such work. The blade, nicked in places but more than serviceable, suited for the woman that wielded it.

She reaches for the whetstone and strokes it across the blade's edge at just the right angle. The sound is both sharp and whisper-soft, melodic and ominous. "You carry blades and don't know what I'm doing? I'm surprised."

Seanán sighs, frustrated. "Am I annoying you? Because I can go."

"Not annoying, exactly. Varric likes to talk, you know. So does that Isabela."

"Yeah, well, I talk to them all the time. You act like you're too good for us, or something." Seanán doesn't mean to say it, but there it is. He pushes his heel into the carpet and drags it a bit, like a petulant child. Aveline's sharpening stone pauses for a moment, then returns to its stroking. The silence drags on.

"It was just supposed to be Wesley and me," she says, quietly, as if she is speaking to herself. "I didn't expect to be here. I didn't expect to be _anywhere_ without him, but I definitely didn't expect to be here.  
You and your mother and sister, you're good people, but I don't know about some of your friends, and frankly, I'm a little overwhelmed. This is a lot, all at once. Give me a while."

He's surprised to note the sorrowful uncertainty in her tone, when she had sounded so brisk and controlled before. She doesn't falter in her work, but her expression's shifted subtly, from studious concentration to a sort of rue, a twinge of 'maybe I _don't_ know what I'm doing'.  
He hadn't even stopped to consider that she was grieving, because she didn't do it openly. Just like he was about Carver -- silent and solemn, carving up bandits and darkspawn and letting their spilled blood be his tears.  
Seanán instantly regrets his comment, but has the feeling she isn't holding it against him.

"I'm... well, I'm glad you came with us. And stayed." He scrubs his hand over the shaved side of his head, a nervous tic, daring to dart a look in her direction. _We're lonely too, all of us. Even Varric, I think._

"I think I will be glad, too, in the end." There might be a ghost of a smile behind the sorrow, or maybe Seanán is hoping too hard.

They sit in silence again, just the whisper of Aveline's whetstone over her beloved blade, but this time there's a hint of companionship in the quiet.


End file.
